So far, cosmology has shown us that this is the only place in all of space which is assuredly hospitable to life. Even the hoped-for Goldilocks planets are extrapolations from measurements - we can't observe them; we can't reach them. There's no guarantee life as we understand it can survive with the gravitational forces and other variables they enjoy. When we colonize Mars, Titan, or Europa, people will live out their days inside a tiny cage at best. They won't look out upon oceans, forests, fields, mountains, tangible grandeur which they can fish, hike, reap, climb.
Our company is titled "Wellness" for a reason. We aren't a gym or fitness studio. We do some of those things as well, since wellness includes physical capability and an effort at athleticism. Without the right mindset, however, a person isn't practicing wellness. We must put life in perspective. Mental health and psychological welfare are connected to physical stewardship. They must also be cultivated with proper philosophical reflection. I'm not saying that life is fair. It isn't. But also, in comparison to what precisely? The storms, weather, climate and atmospheres of other planets aren't exactly humane. The mass of most things we can point to with telescopes would crush us or tear us apart before our spaceship entered its atmosphere... if it even has an atmosphere... or surface. Despite the ravages of this world, this little pocket of the universe is just about the only place we can manage to exist for more than a few seconds. There are inequitable and unfair institutions and systems of oppression on Earth. I agree. But try Mercury out for a few breaths and compare to some of the worst situations on Earth that you imagine. Voltaire’s “Candide” poked fun at the philosophical concept that life works out for the best. I enjoy the book. I own it. I absolutely shake my head when I hear eternal optimistic sentiments. BUT, I acknowledge that there is another equally foolish perspective: unwavering negative ungratefulness and thanklessness. Everywhere else in the universe, life is crushed and blotted out before it can get a toehold. Here, we can more than exist. We can create beauty, art, society. We can thrive, even in the worst of our possible circumstances. Don’t take it for granted. We won’t always have it. We’re lucky we currently do.
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I spend a fair bit of time on movement evaluation and giving clients feedback on how to optimize fitness. Sadly, in objective testing, even some of the most revered screens and muscle testing abjectly fail: https://www.painscience.com/.../functional-movement...
The Functional Movement Screen, which I’ve long said has major limitations, is held up by many in this industry as a sort of gold standard. Among other screens and muscle testing, once it’s put under the microscope, we find it has SOME value; but basically all practitioners oversell the capabilities of such things. Frequently, I work with people who had hoped in some high level expert in one of these related modalities, only to discover zero staying power. As you can see for yourself in this excoriating review by Pain Science, the nature of these types of evaluations is sketchy. It’s not entirely without merit, but I do know people who’ve settled into an unmovable ideological worship of these methods and simply cannot handle criticism of their fitness “religion.” On the other hand, I invite it. My favorite part of my week is receiving critical input. I have no fixed ideology other than pragmatism; so I can throw literally everything out today and I would not only be entirely unaffected, I would be happier, because my knowledge base must be getting closer to practical truth. I’m reminded of Bruce Lee’s efforts with Jeet Kune Do. Fixed styles are destined to come to ruin, because they cannot adapt, they cannot evolve, they cannot improve. Regarding movements screens, I have increasingly shifted toward ones that the layperson can do on his or her own. External subjective evaluation is inherently a little problematic, even in approved therapies and official medical tests. People are so quick to try to deal crushing blows to Covid testing or fill-in-the-blank with any man-made system which, by definition, cannot ever achieve 100% accuracy or effectiveness. Dish it out. But you have to be able to take it too. All we can do is refine, refine, refine, and improve, improve, improve. So your own metric for evaluation is garbage as well, if your expectation for testing is that it hit some mythological perfection. This is also where the Pain Science article utterly fails. When working with people over time, a fixed system of evaluation which passes the external objective metric muster, would have zero training value. We must adapt with clients. Clinicians must evolve with patients’ progress or regress. Though the FMS may fail at diagnostic assurance, proven diagnostic assurance has unreliable outcomes as well once we stretch our perspective past the immediate symptomatic relief. Diagnostic assurance tends to move away from holistic healing and simply toward symptomatic resolution. To be clear, consider an objective diagnosis like an ankle break (e.g. - fibular hairline fracture). We rely on that x-ray or MRI as the word of God. The problem is that now we are doing everything to reduce the symptoms of ankle break, and then think we have solved the problem. But the problem may be weakness that long preceded the ankle break. The problem may be deteriorating neuromuscular efficiency or speed and/or strength and reactive power. The problem is all kinds of other things. The symptom was ankle break. The finite objective analysis has a sample bias embedded. It defines a symptom. It obsesses on that symptom. Voila. The symptom is gone. Ergo, we reason, incorrectly, that it is always superior to something like movement screens. But that is a logic error and a purposely unfair evaluation of one's own desired conclusion. In rigorous tracking with coaching clients, I find that people who address orthopedic issues this way have temporary symptom relief (the process "worked') only to find overall worsened health and/or capabilities. Be careful not to throw your whole support behind any one technique, one system of evaluation, one style of criticism, one political leader. The universe changes and there you sit still claiming your old unchanged belief is the best. If it doesn’t change, it isn’t even good, let alone the best. We must be able to take it, not just dish it out. Once we free ourselves from a single unshifting position, we can take it, because we can move. We can grow. We can improve. We can refine. Then, and only then, maybe we’re warranted in dishing it out. Before then, criticisms are just excuses for you to refuse to move. In two words, practice gratitude. Science has proven it many times over. In as simple an effort as writing a letter of thanks, people experience greater change in affect than talk therapy combined with prescription drugs for mental health: https://www.sciencedaily.com/rel.../2008/11/081125113005.htm. With each expressive letter of thanks, there is an incremental increase in positive emotion.
I’ve covered this numerous times before: https://www.elev8wellness.com/.../the-gratitude-outpouring And, frankly, it’s out in the Zeitgeist. People have seen Shawn Achor’s presentation on the Happiness Advantage: https://www.ted.com/speakers/shawn_achor. Those who haven’t seen it have encountered the precepts elsewhere. Many Psalms are a thankfulness handbook. The Lord’s Prayer is a gratitude formula. In Islam, adherents find it in Du’a. Mindfulness, the non-religious contemporary version of meditation, is often centered on appreciation for our present circumstances. Essentially, the Western obsession with “getting my way” has led people to incrementally move away from thanks and contentment, and gradually shift toward persistent agitation. For those who pause and reflect on their lives a little longer, they find that “getting their way” actually tends to make them more irritable, more paranoid, and more unhappy. The goalpost was in the wrong place. It was on “winning” instead of a meaningful life. And then, when they lose, they feel as though they lost everything, because their whole paradigm of life was built upon “getting their way” instead of all of the things which make life precious and worthwhile. Personally, I know it well. Having coached tens of thousands of hours, I’ve encountered outrageously worldly successful people. They aren’t one iota happier than the rest of us. People who are connected to billion dollar deals may obtain more “stuff,” but they obtain no more peace in their hearts. I’m telling you. The first 10 days that I went independent, I made more money than any big box coaches and trainers make in a year. THAT didn’t fulfill me. My appreciation for time with my family is what fulfilled me. Notice I say “my appreciation for”. I didn’t say “the time with my family” is what fulfilled me, because we can obtain that, and still be thankless. Separately, we have to develop the gratitude skill. It’s like a muscle that needs to be trained, regardless of circumstance, regardless of challenge or curse, regardless of fortune or blessing. Tim Ferris, by most earthly standards, is a winner and a success. He talks openly about depression and thoughts of suicide. You’ll not find a more connected guy; but years ago I heard him say this: “... went to this dinner in Silicon Valley and everyone at the table had at least 200 million dollars, drinking 10,000 dollar bottles of wine that were just stacked up in the basement. In listening to the dinner... you would assume they had just been laid off from Burger King, and had 5 kids and couldn't pay the mortgage. They were so deeply unhappy, and so depressing to be around because of their pessimism and cynicism, that it highlights for me... (the need for) gratitude in the present tense... I once heard that depression is being stuck in the past; and anxiety is being stuck in the future.” I dwell on this concept a lot. For, to me, without proper efforts at mental health, I don’t see any point in physical fitness in the conventional sense. Don’t get me wrong. Exercise and movement is a path to support mental health. But it becomes dangerous when fitness likewise is zeroed in on “getting”. If it’s all about wants and winning, it’s empty. Instead, if it’s borne out of a deep gratitude for the temple you have, a cultivation of the health you appreciate, then it’s proper. It’s healthy. It’s respectful. I like a passage by Henry David Thoreau: “However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poorhouse. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the rich man's abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace.” There are proven techniques to be happier. |
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